


Brother dearest,

by blue like winter (bleucommelhiver)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Character Study, Family Dynamics, Gen, Healer Ardyn Izunia, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-28 21:24:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17190587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bleucommelhiver/pseuds/blue%20like%20winter
Summary: They loved each other as brothers. Then,why—?





	Brother dearest,

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PikaCheeka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PikaCheeka/gifts).



> Thank you Overseer & rin from XV discord for talking me through this and beta-ing — you guys are the best. Hope to write a companion piece or rework this to cover everything we discussed in the future!

“Elder brother,” Somnus calls out solemnly.

He was always such a serious child, quiet and introspective. Always one to deliberate the consequences of his actions and inactions before each verdict, trite as they might be. The very opposite to himself, Ardyn thinks fondly, for he never had to worry about Somnus, and one troublemaker, as Mother so affectionately liked to call him, was more than enough. But for all his solemnity, Somnus was still young enough to be filled with wonderous excitement when he would return from long pilgrimages with fantastical stories of monolithic beasts and queer trinkets of bones and feather.

A pity their personalities, their stations, weren’t reversed. For Ardyn oft thinks, especially during long nights under the open sky and the soft cadence of Gilgamesh’s snores, that Somnus would be much more apt for gifts and tasks the Gods so generously ordained upon him.

But when he sees Somnus’ small face scrunch up in indecision — did he want to eat the Chocobolate first or the Mooglenugget? — Ardyn thinks it is for the better. He is just flippant enough, and perhaps even a little twisted with the way he’s able to find humor in despair, to take on the grotesque sicknesses and deaths of the world in stride. He is not so sure it is something that won’t crush the already fleeting smile of his little brother.

It is better this way.

“Yes, brother dearest?” Ardyn replies facetiously with a low bow to the young princeling before brandishing his latest gift with flourish; a large pearlescent orb he found in the depths of Leviathan’s resting place. “How may I be of service to my liege today?”

Somnus pouts in a childish outrage that Ardyn could only call endearing. “Kings shan’t bow to those of a lower station.” Somnus eyes the shiny ball, reaching out for it after a few moment’s contemplation and turns it carefully in his small palms. “Father would not approve.”

Ardyn reaches down to ruffle his deep navy hair, as dark as his is bright with the color of blood.

“Then I suppose it shall just have to be our little secret.”

 

* * *

 

It has been six years since he first began his pilgrimage. Six times he’s walked the dirt of Eos from end to end. Six covenants he’s formed with six Gods through six trials – all in preparation for his ascension.

It is six years of his little brother’s life that he’s missed, six years he’s lived through letters, from childish scrawls to the neat calligraphy of the latest correspondence — a product of Father’s strict instruction, no doubt.

Six years of his own that wasn’t his.

He is twenty-one now, no longer the child that he was when he first began, but it feels like he’s been caught stagnant in the current of time. He feels it especially when he sees Somnus again, no longer the runt that barely came up to his waist, but a young man grown, soon to rival his own height.

It feels odd to need to reach up to ruffle the hair of his little brother, but he does it anyways and is rewarded with a familiar pout that he finds even more endearing on the face of a gangly teenager. The pout melts away to a shy smile when Ardyn steps forward to envelope him in his arms. Somnus nestles deep into his chest despite his beggarly appearance, a result of endless toiling through the ruins of Solheim where the scourge-afflicted presented themselves in alarming concentration. A stark reminder of the Gods’ ever capricious favor.

“I’ve missed you, elder brother.”

“And I, you. You’ve been keeping Mother and Father on their toes, I hope.”

Somnus grins roguishly and for the first time, Ardyn sees a little bit of himself in his brother. While the Draconian’s decree afforded him a degree of freedom he so cherished before, Ardyn had feared that without him, his little brother, ever the obedient child, would fail to grow into his own person under Father’s domineering tutelage.

“Come now, show me.”

With an excited hop, Somnus brings his hand down, materializing the short blade in a chaotic burst of crystalline blue, before it shines silver, strumming with magic. How queer that his shines a starburst of blue whilst his only shimmer a pale pink.

“Did you see that?”

He did. He does. He can see the power that lingers still in the air, little shards of crystal not unlike the very one he was promised to by the Draconian only six years prior. He can see the power his younger brother possesses, the power only he was supposed to wield. Why? _Why_ —

“Ardyn, look!”

When the twinkling crystals dissipate, he sees that it is the very same blade he had sent home months prior when Somnus had written to him jubilantly with the news that he too, had received the Draconian’s blessing. It is the blade he had commissioned from the natives of Gælad, a small tribe of hunters untouched by the scourge and protected by the Infernian or so their legends dictated, who dwell in the archipelagos off the eastern coast.

Ardyn tamps down the gnawing feeling in his chest and fixes a crooked smile upon his face. “Well done, little one. A spar, perhaps, to test your skill?”

“Yes! There’s no one good left, with both you and Gilgamesh gone. Master Crailas says soon, even he won’t be able to keep up,” Somnus boasts proudly, a trait Ardyn has never noticed before. “Perhaps then I can join you on your journeys too. I want to see the rest of Eos; to help _you_ help the people.”

This time, the malaise slips through his veneer when Ardyn says, “First, show me what else you’ve learned, brother _dearest_.”

 

* * *

 

He can feel it course through his body when he heals, algid and roiling through his veins, until cold perspiration beads upon his brow. Ardyn never paid it any mind, as the first Healer to grace Eos in millennia, he didn’t exactly have a mentor, lest he count the cryptic orders of the Draconian. No, he was on his own— _is_ on his own.

That’s why it takes seven full years of healing, of helping the ill and destitute, for him to fully discern that something wasn’t quite right.

When he thinks back upon it, the signs were always there. It began with the children, the ones who used to flock to him and his steed, a majestic black chocobo as mischievous as her owner, now retreated when he drew near. Then there were the patients; patients who once looked upon him as a savior sent from the heavens only to no longer be able to meet his gaze. But it is when he feels the wetness of tears dribble down his face only to find black ichor staining his fingertips and not the clear saltwater he expected, does he truly realize something is terribly amiss.

He pushes past his attendant, a pretty young blonde he met in a region of floating mountains and blue blossoms, and stumbles through to the adjoining water closet. Resting his hands upon the basin, he breathes deeply as he watches the droplets of tar streak down white porcelain. Slowly, he raises his head until he is level with the looking glass.

The visage that greets him curls its lips in satisfaction.

 

* * *

 

There is a rumor that runs rampant in Cleigne of a dæmon healer that can bring the damned back to life.

They say he is as kind as he is cruel.

For he turns away all, except those at death’s door.

And only then does he shed tears of black.

 


End file.
